Mackesy P. The War for America, 1775-1783
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Graves's second in command, perhaps uneasy about his own part in the battle, criticised his Commander-in-Chief
after the event, as Palliser had criticised Keppel; though unlike Palliser he won the ear of historians. Rodney
sneered, and Hood said that Rodney's presence would have produced a decisive victory; yet exactly three months
earlier Rodney himself had refused to engage de Grasse at all with better odds than Graves enjoyed. In the
subsequent paper engagements it is Graves who appears to best advantage. He claimed that if he had been properly
seconded, four or five of the French van would have been cut to pieces; but he did not impute cowardice or
treason. 'The signal was not understood. I do not mean to blame anyone, my Lord. I hope we all did our best.' This
was a generosity to which few contemporary admirals could have risen.
At sunset de Grasse drew away; and on calling for reports from his ships and learning how much his own fleet had
been shattered, Graves decided it would be imprudent to re-engage. Throughout the 6th the two fleets lay refitting
in sight of each other. On the 7th and 8th the enemy had the wind, and Graves' damaged ships could not have
engaged them if he had wished to do so. At a Council of War on the day after the battle, Hood had pressed Graves
to make for the Chesapeake; and had this been done it is possible that Cornwallis's fate would have been different.
Barras would have been unable to bring the siege train up the river when he reached it on the 10th from Rhode
Island, and the army at Yorktown might have been able to protract its defence beyond the time limit which de
Grasse had set for the operation. Alternatively, Cornwallis might have been enabled to cross the James River and
march for the Carolinas, or the York and race for New York, while the British fleet impeded pursuit. Both these
courses were feared by Rochambeau, and difficult though they would have been, they might have succeeded. Yet
other questions must be asked. What would have happened to the British fleet? Blockaded in the river, short of
provisions, without hope of reinforcements or supplies, its anchorage perhaps made untenable by batteries on the
shore, it would have released Cornwallis only to take his place in the trap. The French would have commanded the
sea and been at liberty to shift their troops at will against Charleston or even New York. Perhaps the stakes were
high enough to justify the risks. But important though the loss of Cornwallis's army was to prove, the loss of the
fleet would have been a worse disaster. The surrender at Yorktown was to break the British will to continue the
fight for the colonies; but the destruction of Graves's ships would have put it out of the country's power to limit the
defeat. The Leeward Islands and Jamaica would have fallen. New York would have been assaulted or starved.
India could not have been defended. And if the French had permitted it, Nova Scotia and Canada would have
passed to American rule.
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4
The World Turned Upside Down
The opportunity to enter the Chesapeake passed on the 9th. The French vanished under a press of sail, and when
Graves reconnoitred the estuary on the 13th the combined fleets of de Grasse and Barras lay inside the Capes in
overwhelming strength. There was nothing to be done but return to New York for repairs, supplies and
reinforcements. One ship of the line which was too leaky to be salvaged was set on fire and abandoned, and on 19
September the remainder reached Sandy Hook.
In the meantime Clinton had embarked a relieving force of troops at New York, and only waited for the Admiral's
word to sail to Cornwallis's rescue. This was now impossible, and having missed the chance to grapple Washington
on the near side of the Delaware, he lacked the numbers to pursue him overland to Virginia, even if he could have
forced the great rivers in his path. Nor did he think Washington would be turned from his purpose by a diversion at
New York.
The first reports from Cornwallis were not unduly alarming. When de Grasse had first appeared and landed his
troops at Jamestown, Cornwallis had taken up a position outside Yorktown, as his works were not ready to be
defended. On 16 September he feared little before the end of October; but on the following day he learnt that the
Rhode Island squadron had joined the enemy, and his tone changed. On the 23rd Clinton received a solemn
warning that if he could not relieve him soon, he must prepare to hear the worst; and on the 24th a Council of War
resolved to take every risk to relieve Cornwallis as soon as the fleet was ready. There was one slender hope: that
the French might lie where the violence of the tide would enable the British to slip past them into the York River.
The military force would be stripped to the bone. The regiments would embark in battleships, without camp
equipment, horses or women; and the battalion guns would have only men's harness to drag them.
On the day of this decision Digby arrived with his three ships from England, and agreed to serve for the time being
under Graves, as Graves's flagship could not be spared for Jamaica. Two more ships came forward from repairs,
and on 10 October the Prince William and Torbay from their detention at Jamaica. But even now the fleet was not
ready. The repairs and refitting had gone forward slowly, hampered by empty storehouses and victualling yards
and the shortage of artificers. These were administrative excuses on which the navy seized to throw the blame for
the delay on the Admiralty; but not all onlookers were convinced. One who was not was Major Mackenzie. He was
a dispassionate staff officer, and by no means uncritical of the army's own discipline: he had reflected on the bad
example set by the British
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generals who, unlike the Germans, had remained on shore when the troops embarked in their transports. He records
on 1 October that naval officers from captains downwards talked of the superiority of the French fleet and the
impossibility of destroying it with fireships. Several of the captains were on shore more often than on board their
ships, and behaved as though they were commanding guardships at Portsmouth rather than battle-damaged vessels
preparing for a desperate enterprise. 'They . . . appear more ready to censure the conduct of others than to refit their
own ships.' The failure off the Chesapeake had reopened the healing sores of the fleet. 'The spirit of party prevails
in the greatest degree', Mackenzie was to write later, 'and our officers seem more anxious to ruin their private
enemies, than those of their country.' 'A most destructive spirit of party prevails . . . some espousing the part and
opinions of one Admiral, some of another, and others abusing them all.'1
Even with the new arrivals the fleet would have only twenty-five sail of the line and two of fifty guns to fight
thirty-six of the enemy who might be holding a defended anchorage. Five fireships were prepared, and Graves
used his reprieve in the command to fill them with officers who were his own friends. At last on 16 October some
of the ships began to move down to Staten Island.
If the navy are not a little more active [Mackenzie confided to his diary] they will not get a sight of the
Capes of Virginia before the end of this month, and then it will be too late. They do not seem to be hearty
in the business, or to think that the saving that army is an object of such material consequence. One of the
Captains has exposed himself so much as to say, that the loss of two line of battle ships in effecting the
relief of that army, is of much more consequence than the loss of it. Sir Samuel Hood appears to be the only
man of that Corps who is urgent about the matter. . . . The others think too much of the superiority of the
French fleet, and say ours is by no means equal to the undertaking.2
It was not till the 19th that the expedition sailed, and old General Robertson declared that with more exertion it
might have been out five days sooner.3 But Cornwallis had been given time by the enemy to put his works in
order, and he wrote cheerfully and had provisions to last till the middle of November. The relief was a desperate
undertaking; but the army was eager to rescue the universal favourite Cornwallis, and Clinton did not
1 Mackenzie, 653, 687, 690.
2 Mackenzie, 664. Willcox (Amer. Hist. Rev., LII.) is convinced that the navy's heart was not in the attempt,
and that the delay in refitting reflected their fears. If this was so, the Admirals should have stated their doubts
firmly to Clinton; but anyone who recalls Lord Keith's conduct off Cadiz in 1800 will realise that an Admiral
required less moral courage to sabotage a military operation than to oppose it.
3Ibid., 675.
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despair. ''Tis not a move of choice but of necessity. If Lord Cornwallis's army falls, I should have little hope of
seeing British Dominion re-established in America, as our country cannot replace that Army. If we do not try to
save it, we cannot succeed; if we do, we may.'1 But off Virginia the fleet picked up a small boat with a white man
and two negroes from the Chesapeake. They had escaped from Yorktown with the news that the rescue came too
late.
On the night of 29 September Cornwallis had retired from his outer position, and concentrated his force in the
narrow belt of his main defences above the York River. He had just over 6,000 rank and file against 16,000,2 but
was confident that he could hold out for a considerable time in the expectation of relief. The enemy broke ground
in front of his lines, and on the evening of 9 October their batteries began to pound his earthworks. Forty heavy
guns and sixteen mortars appeared to be firing. Men fell fast and the fresh earth began to crumble. On the night of
11th the enemy opened their second parallel within 300 yards; and two nights later they stormed the two advanced
redoubts protecting the British left, which were swiftly incorporated in their second parallel. The bombardment had
already been so effective that by now Cornwallis dared not show a gun to their old batteries. On the 16th, the last
day of de Grasse's promised period of co-operation, two sorties forced the redoubts covering two new batteries,
and spiked eleven guns; but the work was done hurriedly, and they were soon in action again. One desperate resort
was left: to ship the whole force across the York River to Gloucester and try to slip away to the north. It was tried
that night, but when part of the force was across the weather grew rough and the attempt was abandoned. There was
no more to be done. In the morning Cornwallis judged that his works would be ripe for assault in many places by
midday. His artillery ammunition was exhausted, and only 3,273 rank and file remained fit for duty in the
Yorktown position. To stand an assault would be madness, and he took the decision to surrender. On the afternoon
of the 18th the army moved out in good order to lay down its arms to the French and Americans; and tradition says
that it marched to the melancholy tune of The World Turned Upside Down.3
If ponies rode men, and if grass ate the cows,
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse . . .
If summer were spring, and the other way 'round,
Then all the world would be upside down.
1 Lothian, 398.
2 Enemy rank and file: French 7,800, Continentals 5,800, Virginian militia, 3,000.
3 See Freeman, V, 388.
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5
Conclusion
In six weeks Clinton's situation had been transformed from stalemate to catastrophe. Nothing known to him at the
end of August had suggested any unusual danger to Cornwallis. Though he knew from intercepted letters that the
enemy intended to attack New York or the Chesapeake with the help of de Grasse, the conclusion he drew from
the intelligence was very different from what followed. He assumed that the British superiority at sea would be
maintained; that the enemy's operations would therefore fail; and that at the end of the summer the French would
withdraw all their troops to the West Indies and cease to help the rebels. Time was therefore on his side. He had
only to avoid risks: 'because it was now manifest that, if we could only persevere in escaping affront, time alone
would soon bring about every success we could wish'.1
Often in the past British detachments had held lodgments on the Chesapeake and other parts of the enemy
coastline. At Rhode Island and Savannah they had been attacked by superior French fleets, but a firm resistance
had soon deterred the French admiral and raised difficulties between the French and Americans. And without a
superior fleet there was little Washington could do to dislodge the British, for even if he could scrape together
enough troops and artillery to attack them, sea power gave them better lateral communications and they could
reasonably hope to relieve their threatened detachment. Washington needed two months to move from White
Plains and reduce Cornwallis: it took Graves five days to move from Sandy Hook to the Chesapeake.
That Cornwallis's safety depended on superiority at sea Clinton well knew. He said so repeatedly in retrospect; and
he had said it long before, and had been assured by his government that at least an equality would be maintained in
American waters. On this assumption he proceeded: de Grasse overturned it. The troops from the West Indies gave
Washington a sufficient force to pen Cornwallis inside the Yorktown defences; the naval battle enabled the French
to move a siege train into the Chesapeake, with only six laborious miles to haul the guns from Jamestown; and the
presence of a superior fleet prevented rescue or relief. Cornwallis's fate was then virtually sealed. A stronger
position could only have prolonged the defence by a few days, and even if Graves had managed to refit his fleet
faster, it could scarcely have forced its way through the enemy. If Cornwallis had escaped across the York River to
Gloucester, it is conceivable that by forced marches without baggage he might have reached New York; but 300
miles of country
1 Willcox, J.M.H., 1945, pp. 3223 (quotation from Clinton's later Narrative).
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intersected by great rivers and guarded by a hostile militia were not easily traversed with the speed to elude a
determined pursuit.
If Clinton can be blamed for allowing the situation to develop, it is because his passivity at New York resigned the
initiative to Washington. He made no attempt to interfere with the numerically inferior enemy camped about him at
the end of August. Yet it must be remembered that till the last moment Washington had no intention of marching
to Virginia; that Clinton was deluded about his intentions when he eventually crossed the Hudson; and that he
acted on the assumption that his control of the sea would enable him to reinforce Cornwallis. Not till 6 September,
when he learnt that an enemy fleet was in the Chesapeake, did he have cause for real alarm; nor did he know the
result of Graves's battle for another week. With justice he could say that the disaster was caused by the want of the
promised naval superiority.
The margin between success and disaster at sea was so narrow that as one reviews the previous twelve months one
laments at every turn some twist of events which might have turned the scales if it had happened otherwise: if only
Gibraltar had not called for relief; if only Hyder's success in the Carnatic had not coincided with Suffren's
reinforcement for the Indian Ocean; if only Digby's ships could have sailed sooner to join Graves; if only Rodney
had intercepted de Grasse before he reached Martinique, or fought him to a standstill at Tobago; if only Sir Peter
Parker had not held back the Prince William and Torbay at Jamaica; if only Graves had kept his squadron together.
Yet war is not a matter of exact calculation, for the fog of uncertainty which shrouds it makes errors inevitable.
Minor errors are balanced by those of the enemy, and can be retrieved if one is operating with an adequate margin
of force. England in 1781 was not. In all the western theatres her fleets were operating with inferior numbers; and
this could be redressed only by an accurate assessment of risks and a determination to stake everything at the
crucial point.
This was not done. In Jamaica two ships of the line were delayed for convoy work, and a third was uselessly
retained. Nor did Graves collect his whole force at the beginning of September, though he knew a French fleet was
likely to appear. But in the last analysis the campaign was lost in the Leeward Islands. There Rodney was in touch
with de Grasse; from there alone could a sense of the magnitude of the danger have been conveyed to Graves and
Parker; from there relief was expected. Yet while de Grasse brought twenty-eight two-decked ships to America,
Hood brought fourteen. 'To this inferiority', Clinton told Germain,1 ' . . . and to this alone, is our present misfortune
to be imputed.'
1 CO 5/103, f. 254.
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When de Grasse sailed for America in July there were still twenty-four operational British ships of the line in the
West Indies; and these combined with Graves's squadron could have beaten de Grasse off the Chesapeake before
Barras joined him. Most or all of the British force could have gone to America. Instead six went home, and another
began a long refit at Jamaica. All these seven were in need of repair; but unsoundness is relative, and de Grasse
took ten ships to America which had been ordered home for refits. It is clear that Rodney's own ship could have
gone to America if he had thought it necessary, and the same must have been true of most of the others. Sir Peter
Parker kept another sound ship convoying on the Jamaica station. There remained sixteen: two of these Rodney
delayed by sending them with the trade to Jamaica, where Parker matched his sense of urgency and delayed them
again. The dissipation of these ten ships had one single cause. Rodney acted on old intelligence from Europe, and
assumed that de Grasse would send only a detachment to America. Rarely has strategic surprise played so decisive
a role in war; and it was due to the vision and daring of de Grasse. It is strange that the man whose courage
decided the war was soon to be a prisoner in the flagship of his outwitted opponent.1
1 The above figures are based on Sandwich, IV, 1257.
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PART SIX
AN EMPIRE SALVAGED
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Chapter XXV
Saving the Ship
1
The News of Yorktown
On 12 October, when the loose earth was flying from the Yorktown ramparts and the British guns were falling
silent under the pounding of the siegebatteries, Germain was looking forward to a campaign by Cornwallis in
Maryland when the weather cooled. This hope was not as wild as it seems in the after-knowledge of de Grasse's
strength and Washington's march to Virginia. The rebels' affairs were shown to be desperate that summer in the
intercepted correspondence of Washington and Lafayette; and news from other sources indicated increasing
animosities within the rebel organs of government, which only French men and money or a British disaster could
prevent from developing into open schism. That the French shared this view was apparent from the deciphered
letters of Rochambeau, which referred to the possible disintegration of the rebel army and the withdrawal of the
whole of the French force to the Caribbean. In these circumstances Washington's intention to attack New York
seemed mere folly. The existing garrison was enough to stop him; and there were large British and German
reinforcements on the way, whose arrival 'when the rebellion is in so declining a stage' was expected to exert a
strong pull on the doubters among the rebels, and enable Clinton to maintain the momentum of his Chesapeake
offensive. Even in the New York area the American Department hoped that Clinton could take the offensive
against the stores which Rochambeau was leaving unprotected at Rhode Island.1
Germain was alert to the threat from de Grasse. But he relied on a rapid pursuit by Rodney, on Digby's three ships
on passage from England, and on the arrival of the military reinforcements before the French troops from the West
Indies could intervene. The first shadow of doubt was cast by Rodney's cocksure arrival at Plymouth in September.
The information he brought of Hood's delay in leaving the West Indies made it probable that he would reach
America too late if de Grasse risked the trade for the sake of speed. But the time had long passed when
intervention from Britain could change the course of events.2
1 CL, Clinton, 7 July and 4 Oct. from Germain; CL, Germain, 23 June from Geo. Rome, 26 and 31 July to
Haldimand; CO 5/103, f. 115.
2 CL, Germain, 26 and 31 July to Haldimand; Knox, 179.
28
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The news of Graves's indecisive battle off the Chesapeake reached England in the middle of October. No one could
guess its ultimate effect on Cornwallis; but even at the best it dashed the hope of a naval victory which would
restore the initiative to England and bring an honourable peace within her grasp. 'I nearly think this Empire ruined',
wrote the King; and a Treasury official lamented the wear and tear of indecisive war. 'Nevertheless I am inclined to
hope we shall get through the plunge half drowned, and a proper object for the care of the Humane Society . . .
Shall we ever have another victory on that element which we used to command?' Germain by now had long since
despaired of the navy. 'It is no use our fleet sailing from Torbay', he had written sarcastically a few days earlier of
Darby's command, 'as we cannot be alarmed for the Channel and we never cruise in stations to alarm the enemy.'1
By early November Cornwallis's critical situation was apparent. An officer home from America thought he would
break out towards the Carolinas; but Germain did not allow so vain a hope to delude him, and the whole world
hung on the news from New York. If the relieving force failed to get through, wrote Sandwich, 'there is, I fear, an
end of all our expectations of a favourable conclusion of the American war, and consequently all hopes of a peace
in which the power and riches of this country are not to be annihilated . . .' Even Lord Carlisle's frivolous circle
recognised how much depended on the event: even George Selwyn was stirred, though more heated by Lord
North's unfeeling way of granting a favour. Carlisle himself, now in Dublin as Lord-Lieutenant, waited with deep
anxiety for the news which was expected from America about 27 November. 'The fate of England seems to me to
be set upon one cast' 'what a tremendous and awful moment'.2
The news was in Paris first. Vergennes told Franklin on 20 November of Cornwallis's capitulation. Clinton's
despatch which reached Germain's office at midnight on Sunday 25th had been written off the Chesapeake and left
little room to hope that Cornwallis could be saved; but the truth had already arrived from Paris at midday, by the
packet boat which had taken the Comte de Jarmac to Calais. Germain, if Wraxall's story is true, set off at once
from Pall Mall in a hackney carriage, picked up Stormont in Portland Place, and went on to Thurlow in
Bloomsbury. There they determined to tell North. Between one and two o'clock Germain arrived in Downing
Street. North, he told Wraxall, took the news 'as he would have taken a ball in the breast'. Germain knew what the
1 G 3426; Sandwich, IV, 181 n. (cf. 162); Knox, 180; CL, Knox, 1 Oct. from Germain.
2 G 3439; Knox, 180; Sandwich, IV, 201; Carlisle, 5315.
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